All of us know there
is something terribly wrong with our world.
Only an unthinking, uncaring person could fail to be
concerned over the rising tide of crime, political assassinations and
international terrorism that makes up much of our news today.
Despite the attempts of former
President Jimmy Carter to make human rights a cornerstone of his foreign
policy, flagrant abuse of human rights goes on apace throughout the
world.
The communization of the
nations of Indochina, oppressive dictatorships in Africa, Central and
South America, civil or guerrilla warfare in El Salvador, Cambodia,
Northern Ireland and open warfare between Iraq and Iran are outstanding
examples.
Bombings, kidnappings,
arson, murders, attempted or successful political assassinations and
attempted coups have rocked nations all over the world in recent months,
including Italy, West Germany, Spain and the United States.
Despite their own significant crime
rates, many third world countries point a finger of accusation at the
United States, claiming we are the most violence-prone people on the
face of the earth.
When news of the
attempted assassination of President Reagan reached foreign capitals, it
was met with a not so surprising "ho-hum" attitude on the part of many
foreign governments which have come to associate violence, especially
violence involving handguns, as peculiarly American.
While the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul
II by Mehmet Adca in Rome may have proved that political assassinations
are most certainly not confined to the United States, it is nevertheless
painfully obvious that the United States leads the world in
violence.
In this time of
skyrocketing crime and the escalation of violence on an international
scale, even the term "law and order" has become suspect.
Usually, "law and order" conjures up visions of
beefy, red-necked cowboy-attired county sheriffs pistol-whipping
itinerant blacks in sleazy jails in the American South.
In a wave of antirepressive outrage in the 1960s,
legislators wrote a host of new laws aimed at the protection of the
rights of criminals which effectively handcuffed the police
and rendered the criminal justice system almost totally ineffective.
Today, police suspect that only
about 50 percent of some crimes are ever reported. Of those reported,
only a small percentage are cleared from police blotters by arrests. Of
the arrests made, only a small percentage ever go to trial. Of those who
come to trial, only a small percentage are convicted. Of the
convictions, only a small percentage are sentenced. Of those who are
sentenced, only a small percentage actually serve time for their crimes,
and of those who serve time, only a small percentage serve the maximum
time prescribed by law.
Our news
media are replete with stories of convicted felons out on the streets on
parole, or awaiting trial on bond, who commit vicious crimes.
In some of the larger urban areas,
police maintain that massive percentages of crime are committed by a
comparatively small group of repeaters. Police bemoan the fact
that a weakened criminal justice system, hamstrung by insipid, toothless
laws, provides no real deterrent to crime; that most criminals are back
on the streets almost before police can complete the paperwork required
to document their arrests.
The
United States wrestles with a gargantuan drug-smuggling problem, knowing
full well that only tiny percentages of drugs flowing into the United
States for resale in the illicit markets are apprehended by customs
officials and other law enforcement agencies.
Consider your own environment.
How many people do you know in your own neighborhood,
among your family, friends or distant relatives, who have been
victims of crime in the last few years?
What about your home, your place of business, or your car?
Can you think of any acts of violence you have witnessed in the past
year or so? What about children in school?
Consider the incredible picture of the American public school
systems, with an outcry from teachers for more discipline, uniformed
officers patrolling the halls and rooms, and gangland-style violence.
Youngsters in the very earliest grades extort "protection money" from
other children under the threat of physical violence.
Consider the incredible number of private schools
springing up all over the United States, and the flight away from the
public school systems to parochial schools by frightened parents who
believe drug-related violence has escalated so alarmingly they are
afraid to leave their children in the public school system.
All of us know something is
deeply wrong with the very fabric of life in our beloved
countries.
It is as if the whole
Western world suffers from a deep-seated malaise, an all-pervasive
attitude of resentment of authority, suspicion of "law and order"
and the suspicion that all public officials are cheats, thieves,
hypocrites and fools.
From time to
time, neighborhood organizations spring up. forming vigilante-type
anticrime groups to patrol their own areas in an attempt to protect
themselves from a rising and already enormous number of
neighborhood-type felonies such as automobile theft, rape, arson and
burglary.
One of the grisliest
chapters of crime to be written recently was the ongoing series of
murders of youthful black persons in Atlanta.
Meanwhile, church groups, citizens' committees, service
clubs, law enforcement officials and politicians call for more
protection, sterner penalties, harsher laws and swifter justice.
Strangely, some of the same church
groups who wring
their hands in
despair at the spectacle of unbridled violence in our society preach a
doctrine of nonobedience to the laws of God!
They call it "grace" which
many seem to believe is a condition of a Christian, rather than a
quality of the nature of God. To millions, "grace" means
there is no requirement on Christians to keep the Ten
Commandments!
Is there any
connection?
Any child taught to obey
the laws of God will have little difficulty learning to obey the
laws of man. Any family believing in the laws of God-living a life of
obedience to the Commandments in the Spirit as well as in the
letter-will simply be unable to rear lawless, rebellious
children.
Make no mistake about it!
The root cause of all the
crime and violence can be traced squarely to the doorstep of the
home.
Today, divorce rips
apart more than a third of all homes. In the large megalopolises, the
divorce rate soars above the marriage rate. More than half the babies
born to black women in large urban areas are illegitimate, and about
half of all teenage marriages are because of premarital pregnancies.
Major percentages of these easy, hasty marriages break up in divorce in
the first year. Most survive less than five years. A major portion of
the female labor force are divorcees, working to support children they
have placed in day care centers and schools.
Major criminal activity has moved inside the
home, with enormous numbers of murder-suicides between spouses each
year, murders among estranged mates, wife beatings (and the increase in
"battered wives" homes in many cities), child beatings and abuse,
runaways (a mammoth problem each year), estranged mates kidnapping their
own children, and the run-of-the-mill unhappy, barely-making-it,
just-don't-care home where two struggling strangers "live" together in a
motel-like environment staring each night at the greatest conversation
killer in history, television.
What
has all this done to the most precious national resource, our children?
Practically destroyed a whole
generation!
Today's teenage
killers were yesterday's toddlers.
Killers are made, not born.
Believe
it or not, like it or not. there is a direct cause-and-effect
relationship between the godless lack of respect for authority
and the monstrous wave of crime and violence sweeping through
society.
In this age of "situation
ethics," "no absolutes," "anything goes," and "if it feels good do it,"
the main "commandment" seems to be: "Do it to everybody else before they
have a chance to do it to you"!
Millions believe in the "Ten Suggestions," perhaps, but those same
millions curse the air blue, violate the commands protecting marriage
and the home, covet and lust, lie and cheat-and then look around in
amazement and wonder why the good life is denied them!
They simply do not know the commandments of God are
designed to produce the really good things in life, that they are
designed to protect society, protect life, protect
our children!
Why do they
not know?
Because their churches
have not taught them! There is no teaching in the vast majority of
churches or schools that God's laws are to be obeyed!
The churches do not teach what
sin is. Thousands of pastors of churches would fail a simple
Bible test, asking them to list just one scripture that says,
plainly, what sin is! While many of them may know that
scripture, they would refuse to list it as an answer.
In this booklet, you will see
proved, from the pages of your own Bible, that it is an absolute
requirement for every Christian person to observe the Ten
Commandments!
What Is Law?
Consider the word law.
What is a "law"? Look up the definition in your own
dictionary. Probably you will discover the lengthiest explanation
following any other word in the English language, with up to 12 or more
separate categories of meaning.
While it is usually not listed first, law can be "a sequence of
events in nature or in human activity that has been observed to occur
with unvarying uniformity under the same conditions: often law of
nature."
In this application,
the known laws regulating our universe, solar system, the earth and all
life upon it are contained. The exact placement of the earth in the
solar system, gravity, the two magnetic poles, the two laws of
thermodynamics, laws involving geology, mineralogy, biology and all of
the physical sciences are immutable.
The origin of the word "law" seems to be something that is laid
down, or settled.
It
is as if it is something which is, in the sense that it is
imperturbable. unshakable, implacable, immovable, irresistible,
unchangeable, permanent.
Actually, "law," in this sense. seems to be closely interrelated with
the very nature of God.
When
Moses wanted to know who it was with whom he spoke, and who was
commissioning him to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, the
Creator said His name was "I AM"! The force of immutability,
unchangeability and permanence is conveyed by that name. It
is as if God was saying He is the One who simply is! He is there.
He is from everlasting to everlasting, permanent, and, if our
limited human minds can come to understand it, of all "things,"
including laws, forces, energy or matter that we can come to know or
understand with our physical senses, He alone truly IS, in the
sense that, while all material elements may be changed, altered. or in
some way "destroyed," God alone remains absolutely fixed and
PERMANENT.
The Bible tells us we can
come to understand a little of the invisible Godhead by looking at the
things which are. Paul wrote ". . . that which may be known of
God is [evident] to them, for God has shown it unto them. For the
invisible things of Him are clearly seen by looking at the creation
of the world - by understanding all about the things that are
made, including His eternal power and
Godhead - so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:19,
20, paraphrased).
The laws governing
the physical sciences, such as the properties of minerals, laws
governing chemical substances, and the laws that govern all created
material, are therefore an expression of the very nature and divinity of
God.
His laws are immutable.
Newton did not "invent" gravity; he
only defined it. Science cannot take credit for setting the laws
in motion which govern our material universe, it can only attempt to
define them, and then work and live within them.
The proverbial old professor, working with his
smoking test tubes in his littered laboratory, knows he must unerringly
obey the physical laws governing the properties of various chemicals,
or, should he pour one volatile substance into another, he and his
laboratory would disappear in a multicolored cloud of flame and smoke,
accompanied by a thunderclap of an explosion!
We tend to take all of these physical laws for granted.
Does one person on the earth awaken each morning to realize he has taken
a journey during his night's sleep of more than 8,000 miles? Does more
than one person out of whole populations ponder, even once in his life,
the phenomenal fact that straight through from his feet, about 8,000
miles distant, are other human beings completely upside down from him?
Academically, he may have taken notes, observed educational motion
pictures and written reports on the subject of astronomy as he obtained
a smattering of information concerning the physical sciences in a
smorgasbord of courses. But does he realize?
The average layman has received only the briefest
introduction to the physical sciences, and the average housewife could
not explain what causes bubbles to appear in the bottom of her Silex
coffee maker when heat is applied.
Think about all the laws governing our environment for a few
moments. Is there anything about them which makes you uncomfortable?
Are we upset, nervous, unhappy or in
some way constrained by such laws?
Perhaps golfers might wish God would suspend the laws governing
the flight of a golf ball through the air, allowing them to hit the
longest drive in the world just once; perhaps speedsters would like to
see the laws governing the motion of awkwardly designed machinery
suspended for just a few moments, thus setting new records; perhaps pole
vaulters, high jumpers, sprinters, swimmers and other athletes would
like to see the suspension of the laws with which they work each time
they strive to vault higher, jump farther or swim faster - but, alas,
such is not to be.
However, none of
us feel imprisoned by the laws which work upon us every
single day.
We say we "weigh" so
much, meaning we are measuring the pull of gravity upon our
bodies. We do not think of ourselves as being pulled down upon
the earth by a magnetic like force, an actual field of energy
which acts upon all physical bodies in our known universe, and so we
reverse our understanding of the procedure, and speak of ourselves as
having such and such a "weight." We do not say my "gravitational pull"
is so many pounds per square foot; we say, rather, I "weigh" so many
pounds.
Our language expresses our
inability to go beyond our known physical spheres of knowledge.
We invent words like "all," "something," "nothing," "never," "ever,"
"out," "away" and "up," But "up" is not "up," but "away." "Down" is not
"down," but "through." The word "all" is impossible for us to
understand for we do not understand our own universe, including the
theories of the now famous "black holes" or the concept of an endless
universe.
Usually, it is
difficult for us to think of ourselves as the merest spark of life in
the blackness of an infinite universe, having a certain physical form
and shape, designed as human creatures for a great purpose which
is so awesome it is difficult for us to comprehend.
Our mundane knowledge, carnal associations, limited
perceptions, temporal goals, vain ambitions, shortsighted hopes and
earthly desires constantly encircle us with self-imposed barriers in
which we live and move like so many larvae in cocoons.
We are notoriously shortsighted.
Because, believe it or not, most of mankind
is utterly deceived about the very purpose for human
existence; because the majority of all religions are
likewise blinded to the real truth of man's ultimate destiny,
most of us have never seen even a passing glimmer of what truly lies
beyond our brief life span on the good green earth.
A deeper awareness of our own
physical surroundings; intense study into any of the life sciences and
all of the physical laws governing living creatures, could lead anyone,
even as God says in Romans the first chapter, into a greater
understanding of the immutable, invisible Godhead.
In short, we can come to know a great deal about the mind,
purpose and nature of God by studying His handiwork.
So far, we have been speaking of
"law" in the sense that it governs the universe, our earth, and all life
upon it. However, you will usually find the first category of "law" in
the dictionary as being "all the rules of conduct established and
enforced by the authority, legislation, or custom of a given community,
state or other group." Strangely, most dictionaries never include any
reference to the Ten Commandments, the first known laws
handed down to man.
There will
usually follow a lengthy description of the meaning of the word "law,"
as it is applied to the legislative bodies of our communities,
jurisprudence, the legal practice, common law and many other aspects of
the subject.
Consider, for a moment,
the entire body of "law" governing your nation.
The average citizen (with the possible exception of con
men, With the exception of people's complaints about high taxes,
military conscription or other real or imagined abuses of government, it
is fairly safe to say most citizens recognize the laws regulating our
societies are placed there for the greater good of the greater
number.cheats, thieves, arsonists, rapists, burglars, murderers, drug
smugglers, members of the Mafiosi and teenage vandals) are
comfortable with the laws of the land.
We may resent the 55 mile per hour speed limit, but we do
not resent the fact that the federal government was not only concerned
with conserving energy, but with saving human lives.
The average citizen does not spend his time
resenting the laws which govern society. That it is a crime to murder,
steal, rape or burn is not something against which John Q. Public
generally protests.
Even in the most
primitive societies on earth, one will discover basic ingredients of
similar laws. Among stone-age tribes in the upper Amazon, the
island of Mindanao in the Philippines, New Guinea and Australia, one
will still find "laws" governing these primitive societies which
prohibit stealing, trespassing, assault or wife beating.
One cannot help but notice an all-pervasive
theme of law found universally among all societies.
That theme is the notion that
various rules must be laid down by which any society is regulated.
Loosely stated, that recurrent theme says one is basically free to
conduct oneself in such a manner so as not to infringe upon the rights
of his fellow members of society.
Thus, while stone-age societies such as the head hunters of the Amazon
may cheerfully wage war against other tribes, it is against the law to
commit murder within their own community. That same concept of law holds
true for the space-age societies of the Soviet Union and the United
States.
But from whence came
law?
At the root of the
question is an even greater question:
Does God exist?
In
other words, did the immutable laws governing the physical universe just
"happen" by accident, or were they set in motion by a
great Being who had the power to establish such immutable laws?
Can we safely say the orbital
patterns of the planets, the myriad laws governing our ecosystem,
including our own bodies, are the result of aeons of blind chance,
whimsical change, capricious accident and randomness?
But this is contrary to everything we observe in
our lawful surroundings which we call "nature."
Randomness never produces order. Just as explosions in
print shops do not produce encyclopedias, neither does accident produce
beautiful design.
There are seven
irrefutable proofs that Almighty God does exist.
While these proofs belong
appropriately in a separate volume, the first of these major
proofs must be dealt with here.
Law Requires a Lawgiver
The existence of law - law
in all its forms as we observe it acting upon the material universe,
giving the law-abiding "properties" to matter itself - loudly cries out
there had to be a Lawgiver.
God's Word says, "There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and
to destroy" (James 4:12). The late Dr. Wernher Von Braun, world-renowned
inventor of Hitler's V-1 and V-2 rockets, and later head of the U.S.
manned space program, said, "Why do I believe in God? Simply stated, the
main reason is this: Anything so well ordered and perfectly created as
is our earth and universe must have a Maker, a Master Designer.
Anything so orderly, so perfect, so precisely balanced, so majestic as
this creation can only be the product of a Divine Idea.
"There must be a Maker; there can be no other way."
Von Braun was not alone. Thousands
of astronomers, geophysicists, geologists, biologists, medical doctors
and other professionals in scientific fields have issued statements
filled with awe about the intricately interdependent, delicately
balanced arrangement of our material creation, and thousands of such
professionals believe in a divine Being.
Our physical universe has been likened to a superbly engineered,
flawlessly designed, perfectly made Swiss watch.
The two laws of thermodynamics, the process of erosion,
the diminution of natural resources, together with other phenomena,
prove our earth is gradually "running down."
It is obvious no new energy supplies in the form of
fossil fuels are being buried beneath the surface of the rocks today.
While a chance emergence of volcanic cones such as Surtsey or Paracutin
might occur from time to time, no new mountain building is going on
today as it obviously did in the past, when the soaring Andes, Alps,
Rockies, Hindu Kush, Himalayas and Cascades were shoved into the sky.
Erosion causes the mountains to
gradually wear down. The rivers, bays, estuaries and ocean bottoms
gradually fill with silt, and the physical surface of our earth
gradually moves toward a mean level.
It is obvious that our material creation was designed to last for a
certain, finite period of time.
Consider an appropriate analogy: When America's astronauts are blasted
off the launching pad at Cape Canaveral, they are in a comparatively
small cocoon, supported by the same physical substances that sustain
life on earth.
Hurtled into a
hostile environment where there is neither discernible gravitational
pull on their bodies, food, air or water, they must endure in a
pressurized capsule, carrying aboard the required nourishment and
elements for survival.
Their food,
water and air are only going to last for a certain period of time. That
period of time is carefully measured.
Through telemetry, the space center at Houston can keep
track of every ounce of materials aboard this tiny earth like capsule,
including even the recycling of bodily waste.
Just as the fuel cells aboard the space shuttle had a
certain measurable number of gallons; just as there were only so many
ounces of food, water or oxygen aboard, so that the mission had a
certain specified design limit, beyond which the two astronauts would
have died, failing the infusion of new life-support systems, so
our earth is finite.
Our
earth contains just so much fossil fuel, just so many tons
of various vital and strategic metals and minerals, and can produce
just so much food.
The
"master clock" observation is a fairly common one. While our earth seems
so big and virtually limitless, it has been with a profound shock that
scientists have learned in the last two decades how rapidly man has
polluted his own environment, to the point that the very oceans
themselves and the mantle of air surrounding our beautiful planet are
threatened.
Not only are the great
blue whales threatened with extinction; man himself stands in
deadly peril.
Not only does man face
the threat of extinction through the engines of destruction created by
science, such as atomic and hydrogen bombs, chemical and biological
warfare or other military means, but the threat of massive starvation
through widespread drought and famine, the dread specter of global
disease epidemics brought about by malnutrition, and the beginning of a
new dark age looms frighteningly on the horizon.
We are seemingly determined to destroy our life-support
systems on our beautiful space capsule, planet earth.
The point behind all this is that man utterly fails
to understand he is on a trip.
We do not see ourselves as a precious spark of life aboard the
most hospitable and beautiful spaceship that has ever been devised.
Hurtling through the blackness of nothingness at an incredible speed,
turning on our axis once daily, the moon making its monthly journey
around our oceans and land masses, our spaceship earth, with its
accompanying moon like a fellow traveler, makes an annual journey around
the sun.
We do not think of
ourselves as space beings, walking freely about underneath the
envelope of air that is held fixed firmly to the surface of our earth
because even air has "weight," and is subject to gravity, but
instead insist on thinking of ourselves as the most permanent fixture
about, the while wondering whether or not there really could be any
Being worthy of the name of "God."
We can come to understand the existence of God; come to understand His
divine nature, by looking at the physical creation His own hands have
produced.
One of the greatest
proofs of the existence of a divine Being is the fact of LAW!
Law requires a Lawgiver!
So
far, we have been dealing mostly with those immutable laws which govern
the universe, the solar system, our earth and all life upon it. Now it's
time to look at the very source of all law, Almighty God
Himself, His first communication with man, and the events leading
to the delivery of the greatest, fairest, most sensible and practical
code of law ever devised.
To begin -
let us start at the beginning.
There are two places in the Bible where the phrase "in the
beginning" is used. Believe it or not, Genesis 1:1 is not the
most ancient, the truest "beginning" in the sense of the beginning of
all things, of the two.
The phrase
which takes us even further back in the distant past than Genesis 1:1 is
found in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 1.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
"The
same was in the beginning with God.
"All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that
was made . . . He was in the world, and the world was made by Him,
and the world knew Him not.
"He
came unto His own, and His own received Him not.
"But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: . . . and
the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and
truth" (John 1:1-14).
This passage,
dealing with the dimmest beginnings of creation as we know it, is an
obvious reference to Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The statement about the
Word being "made flesh" as the "only begotten of the Father" is
unmistakable.
One of Dr. Billy
Graham's favorite passages is also found here: "But as many as received
Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that
believe on His name" (John 1:12).
It
is obvious this scripture deals with the preincarnate state of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth.
The Greek word
for "word" is "logos."
The Greek
word conveys the thought of "Spokesman," as if an executive
administrator; the One who did the speaking, through which, by divine
fiat, "all things were made."
Few of
the organized religions of the world believe this simple truth found in
the first chapter of John; that Jesus Christ of Nazareth is, in fact,
the very person of the Godhead who did the creating, and
who therefore was the ancient Lawgiver!
If the churches of this world understood this beautiful
and simple truth, it would utterly change their approach toward
the Ten Commandments.
The popular
misconception is that the Ten Commandments are purely of the "Old
Testament," and are allegedly the harsh, stern laws handed down by the
antiquated "Old Testament" God, who most people seem to think was God
the Father.
The popular conception
is that Jesus Christ abrogated His Father's harsh, stern law,
replacing it with a law which contains "love, mercy and
forgiveness."
Thus, the churches of
this world have portrayed to millions of believers the false concept
that harshness and sternness, a law which was a veritable "yoke of
bondage," was saddled upon hapless human beings by the Father,
but that, through His crucifixion and resurrection, the Son, Jesus
Christ, lifted the requirements of law-keeping from Christians,
thus bringing them out of "bondage."
Just how utterly ludicrous, misleading and false is this
ridiculous concept will become eminently clear as we proceed.
For the moment, notice the first
chapter of John again. The "Word" (Logos, or the One who became Jesus
Christ) was said to have been "with God, and the Word was God."
But who was this?
Simple. Next turn to Genesis 1:1. "In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth."
In the first chapter of Genesis the Hebrew word for "God" is
"Elohim." Elohim has a plural ending, and is analogous to
seraph (one seraph) and seraphim (meaning two or more).
Most of us commonly speak of "God,"
meaning only one person. However, the Hebrew word conveys the
clearest meaning of a plurality of persons - more than
one!
Notice Genesis 1.26: "And God
said, let Us make man in Our image, after Our
likeness . . ."
The first
chapter of John has already told us that the One member of the plural
Godhead who did the speaking was the "Logos," the One who "became
flesh and dwelled among us."
You are
reading the clearest biblical proof that the personality of the Godhead
who was born of the virgin Mary to become Jesus Christ of Nazareth and
the Savior of all mankind was the CREATOR of the heavens and the earth,
and the very Designer and Creator of all LAW!
When God called His people Israel out of Egypt and
commissioned Moses to lead them, Moses said unto God, "Who am I, that I
should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of
Israel out of Egypt? . . .
Behold
when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, the
God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me,
'What is His name?' What shall I say unto them?
"And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said,
thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto
you."
This is the first place in the
Bible where such an expression is used. As we covered earlier, it
carries the connotation of immutability, permanence, He Who is.
When His Jewish antagonists
disdained Christ, claiming He was making Himself "greater than our
father Abraham, which is dead," Jesus answered, "Your father Abraham
rejoiced to see My day: and he saw it, and was glad.
"Then said the Jews unto Him, Thou art not yet
fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?
"Jesus said unto them, verily verily I say unto you,
before Abraham was, I AM"! (John 8:53-58).
Jesus directly referred to His preincarnate state long
before Abraham, and used the same name He had when He spoke to
Moses: "I AM!"
There are many more
proofs of this simple biblical truth, which make it all the more
surprising that the major church denominations know nothing of it.
Christ is called the ROCK that
followed the Israelites in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:4) It is
perfectly clear that the Being of the divine Godhead who literally
wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger was the
Person of the Deity who later became Jesus Christ!
It would require a whole book, at the very least, to cover
all of the various arguments mounted by the churches against the
requirements to keep God's Ten Commandments!
The subjects would include a thorough exposition of "law
and grace"; "Old and New Covenants"; "the dispensation of grace"; the
meaning of the sacrifice of Christ; what is sin; and a host of others.
Briefly, however, notice what Paul
said was the true function of the law. ". . . I had not known sin, but
by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said,
thou shalt not covet" (Romans 7:7).
The apostle Paul pointed out that the Ten Commandments clearly identify
what is sin!
In this
important seventh chapter of Romans, read for yourself whether or not
the apostle Paul seemed to be "doing away" with the law (which he could
not have done, for he had no such authority, anyway) or whether he is
upholding the Ten Commandments of God.
"Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment
holy, and just and good" (Romans 7:12).
"For I delight in the law of God after the inward man"
(Romans 7:22).
Remember, the law
merely points out what sin is!
The scripture many pastors would refuse to quote in answer to the
question, "What is sin?" is found in 1 John 3:4.
It says, "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the
law: for sin is the transgression of the law."
There exists abundant proof which we shall
reveal later which shows it is absolutely required for Christians to
observe the laws of God, not only in the letter, but in
the Spirit! There exists abundant proof that Jesus Christ
magnified the Ten Commandments of God, making them infinitely
more binding.
Much more on this
later. But now it's time to take a look at the Ten Commandments.
What, after all, is so wrong
with the Ten Commandments? Why is there such bias and
resentment against them? Why do the churches of this world go to
such extremes in attempting to ridicule anyone who believes in keeping
them? Why do so many millions believe it is not incumbent upon
Christians to observe God's laws?
There are only two places in the Bible where the complete
Decalogue is found. You may find the Ten Commandments listed in both
Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.
Now,
for the purposes of answering our question, "Just what is so wrong
with the law?" let's take each commandment, one by one, and, using
plain common sense, find out what would happen if the whole world
kept just that one commandment. Let's see the practical
application of each of the 10.